The Possession of Alba Díaz by Isabel Cañas

Author:Isabel Cañas [Cañas, Isabel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2025-08-19T00:00:00+00:00

XIX

Alba

Alba opened her eyes to darkness. To cold ground beneath her thighs. To the yank of her breath lifting her chest sharp and hard. She had fallen out of bed. How odd.

Someone was holding her. Lifting her.

She twisted away, a cry rising in her throat. The arms released, and she slipped sideways. Struck something soft. Blankets; hard mattress. Bed. Her throat felt ragged. She must have been crying in her sleep.

A figure moved away from the bed. She raised her head.

Elías stood over her, chest heaving, a white sleep shirt clinging to sweat on his skin.

Her mouth dropped open. She was in her nightdress; it wasn’t the first time he had seen her in so little clothing, yes, but in her room? She felt naked. Exposed.

“What are you doing here?”

His brows flew toward his hairline. “Really?” The word was breathless and cracked; his breathing had not slowed. It was as if he had been running. “Really?”

“Keep your voice down,” she said, a scold in her whisper as she reached for blankets to cover herself. Fear lifted at the back of her neck, deep beneath the skin. Something was not right. She should remember being with him in a dark room. Had she invited him? “And get out of here before someone sees.”

“You are in my room,” he said, as flatly as his breath allowed. “You were sleepwalking. And you brought that.”

He pointed at the ground.

She lifted her chin to see past the side of the bed. Metal glinted dull in the gloom.

A kitchen knife, big enough for butchery.

That was not possible. She had locked the door and heaved the chest in front of it. This was a dream. She—

She looked around her, loose hair falling over her shoulders.

The window was not in the right wall. The nightstand—wrong side of the bed.

Her fingertips were at her lips and shaking; her hands had risen to her mouth in horror.

“I…I…I don’t understand.” She jumped from one word to the next in staccato leaps, barely making the connections. She should go back to her room. If she fell asleep again, this would melt into her memory alongside every other nightmare. It might rear its foul head through the murk of waking once or twice, but it would be banished, and it would be gone. She wanted to be gone. She wanted dark oblivion to soothe her aching head. Oh, it hurt. Her monthly blood gave her headaches, but never this bad, not before.

“Who told you about my wife?” Elías demanded.

The word was a bucket of cold water over the head.

“You’re married?” she cried.

“Shh.” It was severe. “It couldn’t have been Carlos,” he continued, low and urgent. “Was it Heraclio? How did he know?”

Elías wore no ring, and the way he looked at her…if he was married, that was sinful. She felt a flash of hatred—and found, to her shock, that it was directed at Carlos, because he had been right. She had never wanted Carlos to be right about Elías, perhaps because she was

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